A new teen mental health first aid protocol is rolling out ahead of next school year, and a statewide organization is looking to extend that training to school communities across New York state.
The National Council for Mental Wellbeing designed the new framework with teen input. It is meant to teach them how to help their peers when they are experiencing a mental health struggle, accounting for real-world challenges.
The Mental Health Association in New York State offers the training, virtually, about three to five times a month at no cost.
"We really want to make this kind of a standard of care for mental health literacy across the state,” said Katie Oldakowski, senior director of training and programs at the Mental Health Association in NY. “There's a lot of power in everyone speaking the same language.”
Oldakowski said the organization works with about 30 school districts in the state including the Rochester City School District, and is looking to work with more. Spokespersons with RCSD did not confirm whether the district would be adopting the new framework next school year.
The training has been around for more than two decades, but the scope of it has evolved from teaching adults to work with adults, to teaching adults to work with teens, to teaching high schoolers how to identify when a peer needs help and how to respond.
The context in which children are growing up has also evolved.
“Social media and artificial intelligence are kind of new terrains for teens to navigate, in addition to the continuous pressures of just being an adolescent and being in transition within ourselves as well as within our social relationships,” said Tramaine El-Amin, vice president for mental health first aid training and consulting at the National Council.
Through the training, teens are taught to be a resource without compromising their safety or overextending beyond their capacity, El-Amin said. The goal is to prevent crises before they arise, while building skills that help reduce stigma, improve empathy, and identify risk factors and signs of mental health struggles and substance use challenges.
The framework follows the acronym R.O.L.E.
“The ‘R’ stands for recognizing signs that your friend might be going through a hard time. The ‘O’ is to open a conversation with your friend, asking how they're feeling, asking how they are, and making sure we're listening,” El-Amin said. “And then the ‘L’ is linking to a parent, a guardian or trusted adult to really provide the support. And ‘E,’ the final letter, is encouraging your friend by staying connected and showing you care.”
The National Council believed it was important for teens to weigh in and help shape the training.
"What scenarios should we focus on? What solutions? What are some of the barriers to actually supporting a friend?” El-Amin said.
This comes at a time of heightened awareness around teen mental health, especially related to social media and artificial intelligence use, and an ongoing mental health crisis that predates the pandemic and the most recent technological advancements. It also comes at a time when schools are faced with budget cuts, including to mental health services.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, suicide is the second leading cause of death for 10- to 24-year-olds in the United States. The rate increased more than 50% between 2000 and 2021. Suicide risk is higher for people who identify as gay, lesbian or bisexual, according to the organization, and girls account for about twice as many emergency department visits for self-harm than boys.
“There aren't many communities that aren't touched by some level of lack of access,” El-Amin said. “I think that we will never have enough crisis care providers, which is why it's so important to equip as many of us as possible with other kinds of training and skill to be able to support individuals.”
For Oldakowski, she sees the training as potentially lifesaving.
“When you're working with people in crisis, and you have these moments where you're coming in as a stranger, as a professional, when these people are their most vulnerable, you realize that there are probably a lot of opportunities that we could have had conversation sooner before this individual is in crisis.”
